Faced with the war that has broken out in Ukraine, it is impossible to remain indifferent: we cannot be indifferent as people or even as professionals. We know that at this exact moment there is not just one war but several wars around the world, perhaps even bloodier than the Ukrainian one, but for different reasons this one is bothering us more: it is an episode of “selective emotion” that is well analyzed by Ingrid Colanicchia in Micromega. Beyond the many reasons that make us so sensitive to this conflict, however, those who work in the field of marketing could not help but wonder these days if and how to address this issue in a brand’s communications.
If not making references to what is happening in the world might seem like an act of superficiality, it is also true that appropriating issues that are perhaps light years away from a company’s values could be perceived as a captatio benevolentiae: a desire to grab a few likes, with yet another post on the theme of the day.
Pantone showed support for Ukraine by naming the colors of the flag as “Freedom Blue” and “Energizing Yellow.”
As Tiffany Hsu, in the New York Times, timely analyzes, as soon as the conflict erupted many brands rushed to express solidarity with the Ukrainian people: productivity apps, e-Sports teams, cryptocurrency services, and advertising giants. It was a hoax, however, the boycott by PornHub. A message of proximity, however simple, can already be political: all it takes is a nuance, such as the choice of the word invasion instead of the word war, to give a different interpretation of the facts. In any case, it is perhaps the first step and the least risky of all. So in some cases a message of closeness and a Ukrainian flag on the logo were enough, in others the formal gesture prompted customers to ask what that brand is really doing to support Ukraine. One example out of all is Nestlé: while the brand has published content in support of the country ruled by Zelensky, it is also currently the target of a full-fledged boycott due to its refusal to leave the Russian market.
But how should a brand behave in a context of war? Let’s be clear, this is not a new issue. For at least two centuries, companies that care about communication have had to confront the issue of war. During the world wars brands such as Coca Cola and Johnson & Johnson could go so far as to go into debt in order to show their support for the troops: on the all too complicit relationship between marketing and war there are books such as “The Huns Have Got My Gramophone!”, which disturbingly shows us the proliferation of advertising campaigns that exploited the Great War to sell cigarettes, gramophones or even guard dogs.
A famous wartime campaign from the book “The Huns Have Got My Gramophone.”
Today, however, many things have changed. Although the world never stopped seeing wars, in Europe we perceived them so far away that we forgot how to deal with them. Probably, most creatives working in agencies today can only cling to 9/11 or COVID, to intuit the emotional context triggered by this conflict, but they are not really overlapping dramas. Certainly today most brands have anti-war positions, but it is also true that historically, marketing has always suggested to get as far away from politics as possible, making advertising communication foreign to such dramatic issues. However, we are in the age of social media and also in the age of Generation Z, which have in fact accustomed every brand to take an explicit stance on certain values: on pain of boycott.
Today, some digital strategists, such as KWT Global’s Aaron Kwittken, have literally intimated to all brands and agencies not only to stop certain campaigns (something to be done in an emergency, but which cannot be perpetuated for long) but also to take explicit positions of support for Ukraine, to the cry of “Silence is violence.” Kwittken compares the mobilization of brands against Russia to what happened in the United States after the murder of George Floyd. Black Lives Matter itself was one of the first historical moments when it was not only considered desirable for brands to take a stand, but dangerous not to take a stand. “When there are catastrophic events, companies suggest to their clients to pause social media, campaigns, promotions, and PR activities, in fear of being perceived as insensitive,” Kwittken writes in The Drum, “What if it was time for brands to address geopolitical issues in the same way we already do ecology? After all, are we confident as industry players that we have done all we can to combat Russian disinformation and have had no impact on what is happening today?” Kwittken’s opinion is now borne out by data: following research, 56 percent of Brits said they were less willing to buy from a brand that continues to do business in Russia, while 51 percent said they were well disposed toward brands that invest in supporting Ukraine. In the United States, according to Gartner research, 60 percent of consumers expect brands to reconsider their business in Russia, communication about the safety of personnel in conflict-affected regions (55 percent), and reassurance about the effects of the war on inventory and prices (46 percent). In the same research, only 11 percent considered it appropriate to stop a brand’s marketing activities completely.
The Black Lives Matter movement broke the taboo separating politics from commercial marketing. (Source: Freepik)
As Yan Jin and Lucinda Austin already predicted in a stimulating reading on Crisis Communication, “Brand neutrality is dead. It has been since the murder of George Floyd and the January 6 uprisings.”
The problem is that activism or simple solidarity may not always be perceived as genuine. This is, for example, the case of influencer Kylie Jenner, who was harshly criticized for posting a story in solidarity with Ukraine that was followed, just hours later, by a story launching her lipstick. A similar fear is what prompted a brand like Taffo, archly known for its real time marketing, to avoid dealing with Ukraine, well aware that its signature style would not fit with such content. Riccardo Pirrone, the brand’s social manager, comments on this choice in the pages of Affari Italiani: “Did we build a community before exposing ourselves on a particular topic? Otherwise it is, with a neologism we could coin in this case, peacewashing. You have to understand what issues the brand should expose itself on: doing it on everything is wrong, because now brands are like people and so they have to talk about what they know and what they believe in. Otherwise they sound phony.”
In short, talking about the war without concrete actions, or without a real closeness to these issues, can be counterproductive, causing communication to fall back into what is called performative activism: supporting any cause not out of true belief, but to gain a return in visibility related to the topicality of the issue being discussed.
From solidarity to activism (and its side effects)
What makes a brand’s choice more difficult than whether or not to refer to the war is the fact is that in this conflict, not only words but also actions are expected from companies. Many brands have not limited themselves to communicating solidarity or fundraising, but are trying to put a strain on the Russian economy, with a kind of “private embargo.” The purpose would be to align with Western governments’ attempts to respond to the war conflict with a disruption of trade, perhaps the only “peaceful” weapon capable of challenging an expansionist policy. The list of companies that have halted their operations in Russia grows longer by the day: among the first were McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, prompted by a social movement that would boycott them if they did not. Then followed famous names such as Apple, Netflix, Ikea, Burger King, Pepsi, KFC, Heineken, and so on (here is a complete list, compiled by CNN).
In addition to having economic effects on the population, the intention can also be interpreted as an attack from within on Russia’s historic cultural isolationism: in fact, as columnist Yasmeen Serhan writes in The Atlantic, it is believed that probably “If Russians cannot continue to do what they love, such as watching soccer games, a Western movie, concerts, their tolerance for their government’s isolationist policies will decrease.” However, even this choice has not been without criticism: in fact, what the brands are also causing is irreversible damage to the entire Russian economy, not just Putin.
For this reason, UNIQLO’s communication has tried to stand out, without much luck. This famous clothing brand, differentiating itself from Zara and H&M, did not immediately close its Russian stores. “Dressing is a necessity of life,” said founder Tadashi Yanai, “Russian people should enjoy the same rights that we all enjoy.” Despite the rationale, which certainly has some merit, the Western public response was so aggressive that UNIQLO was forced to change its mind in just two weeks. While polls gave nearly half of the British people willing to boycott the famous clothing brand, UNIQLO rushed to close all 49 Russian stores, with a condemnation of “any act of hostility” and a large donation to victims of the conflict.
The choice to “boycott those who attack” is in fact political and often made out of fear of being in turn boycotted by the “sovereign” public. This is not a new dilemma even if social media today amplifies it: as Harvard ethics professor Nien-hê Hsieh notes, similar questions were being asked by brands in the 1980s, questioning whether to boycott South Africa with divestments to stop apertheid: “Brands were asking how to make things better. Would staying in the country have made them complicit? According to some, one could try to reduce complicity and try to improve things more effectively just by staying in South Africa. According to others doing business there and paying taxes there was a form of complicity.” The answer was not found then, and it is not easy to find it today, because it lies at the border between human rights and politics.
Safer and more difficult to criticize, on the other hand, are those initiatives that are well connected to the brand’s values, and its logic of operation. Think in this case of iLiad, which does not usually play politics, but has supported the Ukrainian people by doing what it does best: zeroing the cost of calls to and from Ukraine, to encourage contact with those who have friends and relatives there. Wizz Air, which is an airline, has acted with 100 thousand free seats on its continental flights to and from neighboring countries, helping flight and aid. These are performative acts, not just messages, which, being perfectly in line with the brand’s mission, strengthen it without exposing it to particular criticism.
Not to be exempt from taking an active role, then, are all brands related to the world of information and social media, since it is precisely through propaganda that they try to give justification to conflicts. Twitter, for example, temporarily stopped all advertisements targeting Russia and Ukraine, so as not to distract the public from life-saving information. It later displayed disclaimers on tweets posted by Russian state-affiliated channels and removed thousands of accounts spreading fake news. Facebook also tried to block publications such as Russia Today and Sputnik News, but for that very reason the social media outlet was terminally blocked by the Russian government, across the board. The same fate befell Instagram, as the Kremlin branded Meta (Facebook and Instagram’s company) as an “extremist” company. In a true two-front war, for its part Meta responded to the Russian blockade with a new restriction: the suspension of all advertising campaigns by Russian companies aimed at the Western market. Putin’s focus on social media is not coincidental: on the one hand, he has been using them for years for disinformation (and still does so today, with the #letsgoforpeace campaign); on the other hand, he knows that they can be an uncontrollable communication tool, during wars. No wonder Er Arnold, a European security researcher, told Wired that he gets 95 percent of the key information about this war directly from Twitter.
From an image perspective, however, the new social media stances against Russia are certainly controversial. For years, platforms such as Facebook have effectively conveyed Russian disinformation campaigns without posing any particular problem, to the cry of pecunia non olet. This mirrors the great contradiction of private companies with incredible firepower over public opinion, for better or worse…it is not the war in Ukraine that makes us discover this, unfortunately.
The fine line between solidarity and cancel culture
If some have simply expressed solidarity or done real activism, others have had to run for cover, or have gotten into trouble because of being too proactive from shielding themselves from criticism. We know that the number one, and most forgotten, rule in crisis management is “don’t panic,” and this war is reminding us of that once again. In the United Kingdom, the price comparison site “Compare the Market” has rushed to hide from its pages the mascot it has successfully used for more than 13 years: a small meerkat dressed as a Russian oligarch. For many years the meerkat ad was among the most beloved in England, but now it has a whole different effect.
If cancelling a millionaire meerkat isn’t all that dramatic, cancelling Russian literature classes to avoid embarrassment is: that’s what happened at Bicocca University, which removed a Russian literature lab from its courses and then apologized rather awkwardly.
Similarly, Netflix has faced some criticism for blocking production of an adaptation of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy’s famous work. Even more controversially, several small and large brands have taken excessive and illogical steps: some U.S. supermarket chains have removed vodka from their shelves (only 1.2 percent of vodka sold in America is truly Russian), and some restaurants have changed the names of their cocktails to “Moscow Mule” and “White Russian” so as not to upset possible Ukrainian customers. In such cases, the risk is that, despite good intentions, we may border on an embarrassing and partisan erasure of Russian culture.
Among the first to speak openly about cancel culture against Russia was Spencer Bokat-Lindet in Debatable, an interesting New York Times newsletter, “Can these informal sanctions on Russian culture and the Russian economy really change the course of the war? Or are they histrionic gestures that stigmatize an entire population for the crimes of an autocrat?”
This reflection by Bokat-Lindet refers not only to the brands that have disrupted trade with Russia, but with those who have effectively removed all reference to Russian culture to avoid being superficially fingered as Putin supporters. Many cultural associations, for example, have turned away Russian artists who have not distanced themselves from their ruler, a move that by the way could have put their families at risk.
Context is King … today more than ever before
The problem is that in today’s world no brand can be said to be divorced from the world around it. Even if we have never dealt with political issues, our advertising, our communication, our image will find itself in an agglomeration of news stories that will flank us. Think of your Facebook profile: scrolling through you will go from photos of your cousin’s cat to a brand new anti-aging cream, interspersed with videos of children crying about the bombings. Applebee’s restaurant chain Applebee’s, which decided to discontinue one of its TV campaigns after realizing that it was appearing as split screens even during CNN’s live coverage from Kiev, knows something about this. “Brands need to be aware of the context, tone, and timing of when their advertising appears,” explains campaign manager Dave Barnett, “It’s not just about the more or less direct relationship between that brand and the conflict or any other event. Context is a priority, that’s always been true and it’s even more true today.”
In addition to the context having changed, our perception of the world has certainly changed as well. What used to seem like a remote scenario, far from us in space or history, has become sadly real and very close again: we know about more wars, but now we are scared of them. So if once we might have found it normal to see war game banners, we now find them distasteful–which is why “World of Tanks,” a famous war video game, immediately replaced all its campaigns in an attempt to “hide” tanks.
Finally, in addition to renewed sensitivity, there will also be a noticeable impact on the economy of all countries: in Italy we are already seeing skyrocketing fuel prices and lines in supermarkets for fear of no longer being able to find pasta and flour. In a climate of fear, priorities change and so do purchasing choices: according to a very recent Ipsos poll, 75% of Italians have already limited consumption in fear of negative effects related to the war. Thirty percent of our fellow citizens will limit car travel, 19 percent will stockpile food, 15 percent will postpone demanding purchases, and 10 percent will postpone vacation plans.
Even if we may have a local business, which has nothing to do with Russia and Ukraine, it is always good to stop and do an analysis on the possible impacts the context may have on our communication: we live in a global world, no one can really consider himself safe from the effects of these events.
The example of Ukrainian communication agencies
Those, however, who are really suffering a dramatic change in the context in which they live are, of course, those who live in Ukraine, including Ukrainian communication agencies, who are using their marketing skills to make a difference. Brian Bonilla writes about this in great detail in AdAge, after interviewing six CEOs of these entities. The Grape agency, for example, has invested the time of all its creative teams and account managers to create content that tells the dramatic reality of war. Grape, along with Bickerstaff, is one of the three largest consultancies in the country that are actively working with President Zelensky to raise international and Russian awareness of the conflict. One of the contents generated, based on this collaboration, is the touching video entitled “Ukraine is Now.”
ISD Group, a Kiev-based agency that won the Lion at Cannes 2019, even went so far as to create a brief provocatively titled “Preventing World War III,” complete with a deadline and a call for the world to intervene to stop the escalation of violence.
A real repurposing of the tools they best master, which has seen solidarity from agencies around the world: a group of British digital strategists, for example, tried to send some of this content through paid campaigns targeted at Russian audiences. What they found, in fact, was that the ad campaigns were less subject to censorship, which allowed them to bypass the controls and get these messages to more than 42,000 users. Similarly, the German agency DDB conveyed Reporters Without Borders content to Russian audiences using new, unconventional channels: through blockchain and the use of Ethereum links. These news stories, too, make us realize that, with their skills, marketers can really make a difference, and not just to support a business.
Figuring out what to do requires a strong brand
As it is clear to us from reading the many prestigious signatures we have cited in this reflection, there are no one-size-fits-all answers, or set models to follow…but everyone must do their part.
To understand how to act we must, first, know our brand in depth. We search in our values, in our identity, in the context in which we operate, for the right way to deal with the issues around us. Trying to always be consistent, because there is nothing worse than inconsistency to show the side of criticism.
As Erinch Sahan, Chief Executive of World Fair Trade Organization, says, “A consistent response requires a mission statement that goes far beyond daily trends, what’s in vogue, tweets and customer likes. It requires the ability to really look at the issues that will be generated tomorrow and the impact our brand can have.” Also of the same opinion is Nevine El Waaraky, Marketing Advisory at Accenture Interactive: “Some people are convinced that just printing a label or talking about an issue is enough, but that is certainly not the case. People are evaluating brand behavior in a much more concrete way today.”
What Simon Sinek says in his famous handbook still applies: “You have to start with your why. What is your reason for being? Michelin sells safety, not tires. Starbucks sells a way of life. Apple sells creativity. Brands with strong identities are harder to challenge because they can make more consistent choices.
In emergency situations, such as the outbreak of war, it is always important to pause, lest our message may jar with the unpredictable context in which we find ourselves. Then, before we act or comment, it is always good to ask ourselves four basic questions:
1.If we were to publish a message about this crisis, would it be consistent with our brand’s tone of voice?
2.Is this issue relevant in reference to our history, values, and mission?
3.Is this event changing the perspectives, values, and priorities of our target audience?
4.Can we try to make a difference by doing something that is consistent with our capabilities and our business?
Only then, perhaps, can we as communicators, entrepreneurs and human beings provide the answers to such decisive and complex issues for the future of us all.
